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Tippett, Crows charged over salary cap

Steve Larkin

The Adelaide Crows, two officials and star forward Kurt Tippett will front a landmark AFL commission hearing after being charged with salary cap cheating and draft tampering.

Tippett, the Crows, their chief executive Steven Trigg and the club's former football manager John Reid were all charged by the AFL on Monday.

They will face an AFL commission hearing next Monday and face among the heaviest penalties available to the league.

If found guilty, Tippett could be deregistered as a player and the Crows banned from up to four national drafts, as well fined any amount the AFL determines.

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Trigg may effectively be sacked from his chief executive role and barred from performing any future duty with the Crows.

But queries remain over what penalty Reid can receive given he is no longer with the Crows, having quit his post at the end of the 2009 season.

Tippett became the Crows' highest paid player when signing a multi-million dollar, three-year contract extension in 2009.

But Adelaide admitted last month they had a once-secret deal, outside the contract, with the ruckman-forward who walked out on the club at the end of the 2012 season and requested a trade to premiers Sydney.

AFL general manager football operations Adrian Anderson laid two charges each against the Crows, Trigg, Reid and Tippett.

One charge alleged "conduct prejudicial to the draft", the other alleged engaging in "conduct in breach of the total player payments provisions in the rules".

The once-secret deal struck by the Crows and Tippett was understood to have agreed to trade the player to the club of his choice, for a second-round draft pick - below the player's market worth - when his 2009 contract expired.

The player payment charge related Adelaide reportedly agreeing to pay Tippett about $200,000 when the contract expired. The money wasn't paid, but neither was the deal declared to the league.

The Crows issued a statement late Monday saying "it was always the club's intention to comply fully with all AFL rules on the draft and player payments".

"We have the highest regard for those rules and the reason that they exist," the statement said.

The revelations of the once-secret deal during the AFL trade period last month resulted in the Crows being unable to trade Tippett to the Swans.

If permitted to play on after Monday's hearing, the 25-year-old would have to enter the draft, where other clubs could select him ahead of the Swans.